


Ridley Le Fay

by blakemusPrime (BlakemusPrime)



Category: Infernal Devices Series - Cassandra Clare, Mercy Thompson Series - Patricia Briggs, Mortal Instruments Series - Cassandra Clare, fae - Fandom, fey - Fandom
Genre: Beginnings, History, character canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-22
Updated: 2013-05-22
Packaged: 2017-12-12 14:47:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,173
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/812768
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BlakemusPrime/pseuds/blakemusPrime
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ridley Le Fay is a character I have dreamt up for the RP I participate in.  </p><p>She is the daughter of the Le Fay family, descended from Morgan.  Her father happens to be Fae, a grey-lord.  This is where the tide turns for Ridley, and she begins to see she can shape her own destiny.  The beginning of this is set in 1807.</p><p>Magdelina, Ridley's mother, is jealous of her daughter's natural talents.  Ever since Ridley exhibited the aptitude to use magick, Magdelina has resented her, treating her as the fabled 'red-headed step-child'.  Finally, after a night of particularly abusive behavior from her mother, Ridley uses magick to flee The Manor and I have a moment to herself.</p><p>Little does she know that the act would fuel a rage in Magdelina like she has never seen before...</p>
            </blockquote>





	Ridley Le Fay

The night was sweltering.  It was the type of heat that settled on the skin and made people feel feverish and faint.  No breeze blew through the settlement of Smith Town and the people were out of doors, silent and sitting on porches and steps in avoidance of small spaces that seemed to trap the heat in excess.  Miles down the dirt road stood a gothic manor, and it was anything but quiet.

The Manor was secluded, as was designed by its creators.  The masters of the Manor prided their privacy.  Prying eyes were always an inconvenience, and if ever mundane eyes looked where they should not, they never had the pleasure of looking again…

Light spilled from the windows of the large estate, casting long prongs across the short clipped lawns.  In the sun room a fair haired young man barred his teeth in anger at his screeching mother.

Long, calloused fingers grasped his collar and pulled him up close.  Magdelina Le Fay looked down her nose and into the eyes of her eldest child.

“Where is she, Malyk!!”  Her words berated him, the gnarled voice causing tension to knot his muscles.

“Aghhh,” a sound of frustration bubbled up from his throat.  He placed a hand against her chest and a flash of light pulsed between his palm and her breast.  The force of the display of power pushed her back and slammed her into the opposite wall.  Shreds of his shirt were clenched tight in her fists as she slowly brought her gaze up to him.  Pure anger poured from her expression.  She was distraught and unkempt.  Her carefully placed and manicured bun had started to fray and come undone.  Her usual immaculate clothing was wrinkled and blood stained. 

She shot out a hand in Malyk’s direction and the lights throughout the Manor flickered, dimming.  A rumbling ensued, shaking and rattling the furniture and knickknacks they supported.  Malyk was seized then with furious pain at her bidding.  He crumpled to the floor, writhing and crying out curses toward her.

She spilled words that cut out his voice, silencing him.  She would not give him the chance to do the same.

Presently another figure appeared in the doorway, materializing from the darkness of the hall.  A rather well preserved, grey-haired matriarch stood at the threshold, not fazed by the spectacle before her.  Slightly she gave a look to her agonized grandson.

“Magdelina…”  she began, “we are not to betray our own blood with the Curses.”  Magdelina’s head snapped up to her mother, her eyes wild.

“She has wedged her thorn-self too far into my side, Althea.  She is abomination to our name.  She will be the downfall of the Le Fays!!”  Magdelina’s screeching only caused Malyk more pain.  Slowly Malyk inched his way to his mother, reaching out and grasping her ankle.  He looked up at her with pleading, begging her to release him from the pain.

She kicked him in the face with enough force that she loosed two teeth from his jaw.  When his head connected with the floor, the shaking of the ground ceased and he lay still.

“If he will not speak, then I will make that infernal beast of a bird squawk until she can bare it no more.”  She stalked hastily past Althea, bumping her shoulder into her mother sharply.

“Magdelina!  Magdelina, stop this madness!  Ridley is of our blood!”  Althea clutched at the stair rail, looking up after Magdelina.  “She will not be the downfall of our namesake!”  She cursed under her breath as she realized her words were falling on deaf ears.  Althea turned in a whirl of skirts and hurried back to her grandson.  A flash of gold light washed over him as she spoke a spell.  Immediately his eyes fluttered open and up to her.

“Go, Malyk.  Your sister needs you.” She looked over her shoulder and into the darkness of the house, “Your mother stalks after her Familiar as we speak…”

Malyk stood up hastily, finding the effects of his grandmother’s spells had healed him of Magdelina’s cruelty.  “She is hell-bent, Grandmother,” his eyes began to widen as he imagined all she was capable of, “I cannot stop her… She is too powerful!”  He looked down at his clenched fists, his knuckles turning white in desperation. 

“My good Son…”  Althea placed a hand upon his shoulder.  “There is but only one who can….”  She smiled warmly at him, her eyes glinting with her anxiety.  “But you must help her see it.  I will lend you my power.  Save the bird and find Ridley…  Call her to arms against your mother.”

A swirl of energy flowed across her arm and collected in Malyk’s shoulder.  He gazed upon the spectacle a brief moment before he looked back up to Althea.  He nodded hastily and dashed for the stairs.  He ran through the corridor, turning the corner just in time to see his mother blast open Ridley’s door with a crack of conjured lightning. 

“No!!”  Malyk used a spell to enhance his muscles, speeding himself up.  He made it into the room and stopped cold in his tracks.  “Mother, do not do this…. I beg you…”  His words were whispers, scared that if he spoke too loudly she would snap.

Artemis was suspended in the space between them, her wings outstretched.  The frightened owl’s eyes flashed at Malyk.  He felt sick, seeing the near mirror image of his sister’s eyes looking out at him.  If she killed Artemis, Ridley would die of a broken heart…  Finally, he forced himself to look past the Familiar to his mother.  She stood resolute as her hair wisped around her head as if she was underwater. 

“Your love of power has corrupted you…  You seek to destroy your own flesh and blood because her power is greater than your own.”  Malyk’s face had turned cold and angry.  He was fed up with her outbursts and with the boost of his grandmother’s power he felt daring.  “Let the owl go and we can discuss this on better terms.”  His hands came up in gesturing as he continued, “If only you asked, I am certain that Ridley will instruct you in-“

Artemis screeched in pain, writhing as much as she was able under the grasp of Magdelina’s spell.  “That half-breed will instruct me in nothing.  She is but a pitiless worm beneath my heal.”  She jutted out her hand, her open palm pointed toward Artemis.  “And I will crush her and take what is rightfully mine…”  Her gnarled fingers began to close and Artemis began to screech again with ferocity. 

“NO!!”  Malyk hurled a streak of lighting at Magdelina, the arc gracefully snaking around Artemis.  The attack connected and Magdelina began her own screeching.  Malyk forced more power into the attack as soon as Artemis began to flap her wings, loosed from the woman’s grip.

“Go!” he screamed.  “Find Ridley and take her to her father’s realm!  Magdelina cannot follow her there!!”  The owl flew about the room frantically.  Malyk used his free hand to cause the window to lift.  Before Artemis made it to the opening, Magdelina stepped in front of her.  Artemis’ talons jutted forward and raked across the woman’s face.  She wildly swatted at the air around her in fury, not realizing the bird had already found its freedom.

Magdelina’s form blinked from existence.  Malyk stepped cautiously forward, confused.  Terror seized him by the back of the neck as cold, spindly fingers closed around the base of his skull.

 

“You will learn your place, my son.”  He felt his skin grow cold and numb, the sensation spidering out from her fingers.  “Just as soon as I put that bitch in her’s…”  He reached to disconnect her hand from him, but found he could not.  The world blacked out as his eyes joined the rest of him in becoming stone.

* * *

The meadow was lit in silver hues.  A pair of large eyes turned up to regard the full moon.  The silver light caught itself in the eyes, mixing in with the emerald and gold.  Golden hair made pale by the moon wisped about her face.  The tall grass waved about in the cool breeze, a sea of rolling vegetation.  Tears that were colored with silver slid down bruised cheeks, stinging the wounds that had burst there from the pressure.  Her hands circled around her aching abdomen, tender from the blows she had endured.

Ridley Le Fay sat in her meadow, full of sorrow and heartbreak.  She was weary, and felt unloved.  The dress she wore scratched and poked at her skin, for it was the only thing her mother would let her wear.  If ever she conjured something delicate and elegant, her mother would punish her…  Her eyes suddenly clenched tight as she let herself wallow in her plight.

Her mother hated her…  This was the simple truth.  She had fallen prey to the splendor of the Fae, and as a consequence she had mothered Ridley.  And ever since the first day Ridley found use of magick, her mother had coveted it for herself…  The ease at which Ridley was able to learn her crafts, and even create her own.  Her power grew, and so did Magdelina’s jealousy.

Malyk had ever been her confidant… but when she had come of age, he had shied away from her.  More tears spilled over her lids as she conceded not to blame him…  Not even their grandmother dared to defy Magdelina’s will.

She was alone, save for her Familiar.  She had fled from The Manor on this night, sealing her room shut with a spell.  With that thought, she looked up, hearing the tell-tell rustle of feathers.  Her eyes spied the owl, flying swiftly toward her from the far side of the meadow.  She stood as Artemis made her decent, catching the fowl in her arms and hugging her tight.   She sat her down on the ground and searched the bird’s frantic eyes.  A silent communication passed between them.  More tears spilled over and Ridley looked away from Artemis.

“I can’t go…”  She sobbed.  She was scared if she left what it would mean for Malyk and Althea.  Beyond this sense of loyalty, Ridley felt useless…  dirty, and above all of this she felt mundane. 

“My daughter,” cool fingers caught her chin and lifted her face.  She gasped slightly as she sobbed, startled by the presence.  Her eyes connected with her father’s…

“Your mother has attempted to snuff out your light, my Dearest.”  His words were smooth, washing over her with elegance.  “Hada…” she breathed out the word for ‘father’ in his native tongue.  It had been 13 years since she had last seen him, on her fifth birthday when he brought her her familiar owlet.

She stood at his beckoning and he tenderly caressed the bruises that blemished her features.  She felt the pressure under the wounds lessen as her skin knitted itself back together.  Her father titled his head in concern as he healed her aches. 

The moonlight splintered itself off the gossamer intricacies of his wardrobe.  Shades of dark hunter’s green and silver were his pallet.  The same golden hair that framed Ridley’s face streamed from his head in long straight strands.  A silver circlet was worked with intricate loops across his brow.  A long coat in the same fashion of his shirt billowed silently in the wind.

Ridley slid her hands under the coat and encircled him with a tight embrace.  She only stood to his chest, and that is where she buried her head.  His arms returned the embrace, cradling her head against him.  Artemis fluttered up to his shoulder and lit there, nuzzling her head against his neck.

“I have brought you another Gift, my child.”  He crooned at her, a proud father.  She stood back from him a bit, swiping at the remaining tears on her cheeks.  From behind him he produced an item covered in a shawl that seemed to be cut from the fabric of the stars themselves.  He placed it gingerly in her hands.

“Go on and uncover it, Dearest,” he flexed his fingers after they had left the object, “for it is something these hands cannot handle.”  His eyes seemed to glitter, full of adoration for his prodigy. 

Still sniveling, Ridley unwrapped the object.  What was left in her hands was a hand mirror.  Its metal handle and rim were etched with scrawling vines.  She looked up at her father, her eyes searching.  She had never been given something so personal, so beautiful.

“Hada…” she began, but he lifted a hand in protest and began to circle around her.  Coming up behind her, he placed his hands on her shoulders.

“Go ahead…  Have a look into the glass.”  She eyed him over her shoulder,then turned back to the mirror.  She lifted it slightly so that her face was visible, along with her father and Artemis. 

She gasped.  Her hand came up to touch her face.  In the glass of the mirror was reflected a woman with beauty beyond compare, dressed in the same garb as her father.  Her features had changed, showing her Faeish nature.  Her father’s smile reflected back at her.

“Thank you, hada…  It is beautiful.”  She spoke into the mirror, still admiring what she saw there.

“Do not thank the Fae, Dearest.”  His hands squeezed her shoulders.  “Remember that you are not merely a mortal.  You are the child of a Grey Lord.  When next Magdelina attempts to snuff out your light… Remind her of who you are…”  A gust of wind blew over her and she turned to regard her father, but instead found empty space.

Artemis lit upon her shoulder, watching her with anxious eyes.  They both turned toward the cry they heard coming from the woods at the edge of the meadow.  Lanterns twinkled between the tree limbs.  Ridley turned to face the direction in question when she saw the first person emerge from the blackness.

It was the mayor, Stewart Smith.  Her brows knit in confusion.  Of all people to stumble upon her secret spot, she could conjure no reason as to why he would be there.

“There!!”  she heard him shout.  “There is the devil!”

She reflexively looked over her shoulder, finding no one else.  From the edge of the woods she was closest to, a horde of people erupted.  She turned as Artemis flew away at her biding. 

“What?”  She inquired, “What is going on, good townspeople?”  A wall of angry faces gathered around her, the people holding pitch forks and garden hoes and shovels, a few even brandishing swords and torches.

The good mayor stepped forward, holding a lantern up between them.  “Ridley Le Fay, _the good townspeople_ of Smith Town have come to see you apprehended…”  His look was vicious with the promise of violence.

Her mouth gaped open.  “On what charges?!”  She sputtered the words out quickly, anxiety twisting her stomach in knots.

“Your mother has confessed to us of your bargaining with the devil…  You have become his whore, a witch in his service.”  He grabbed her by the arm, his fingers digging menacingly into her muscle.

“Where is she?  Bring forth Magdelina Le Fay!!”  The mayor called out over the people, spinning himself and Ridley in a circle searching for her.  Presently she broke through the crowd, fretting and sobbing.

“This is your daughter, Ridley Le Fay, is it not?”  He jerked Ridley out in front of him, closer to Magdelina.

“Y-yes… Yes Mayor Smith…”  She sniveled out, tears snaking themselves down her haggard cheeks.

“And you have seen her practice her witch-craft?  Flirting with the devil himself?”  His words seemed to cause his fingers to tighten around her arm a little more every time he spoke.

Magdelina fell to her knees, as if the words the mayor had said were crippling, too much to bear. 

“Yes!” she finally croaked out.  “I have s-seen her… with mine own eyes…  She speaks with the beasts of the earth… She conjures and plots with the demons!!”  Her words were frantic, nearly screaming them in her hysterics. 

“This very night, she has turned her brother to stone!!”  With that she devolved into incoherent babblings and sobs.  A townswoman stooped beside her and scooped her up and brought her back into the crowd, watching Ridley warily.

Ridley’s eyes stared holes into her mother.  She had been betrayed… Framed.  And more than this, her wicked mother had turned Malyk into stone.  The mayor jerked her back against him.  Her brought both her arms around and shackled them in iron cuffs.

“Then by the Grace of our Dear God, let her be burned…”  The townspeople raised their weapons in adoration, appeased with the mayor’s words.  Ridley kept her gaze on her mother.  Her face was stoic, devoid of emotion.

The mayor tugged angrily on her chains as a carriage rumbled up to them.  “Come along, witch.  Let us sojourn to your funeral pyre.” 

 

Ridley dropped her head and followed after the mayor and without being directed put herself into the carriage.  Malyk was dead.  Her mother hated her.  Althea was a lost cause.  She whispered goodbye to Artemis as the door shut.

* * *

The moon was directly overhead when the bag was pulled off of Ridley’s head.  She was tied to a large stake, her feet resting against a wooden platform.  Beneath the platform was a mound of twigs, fire-wood and brush soaked in oil.  She looked up to see the whole of Smith Town gazing back at her.

A troop of matronly women surrounded Magdelina who continued to weep and look utterly at wit’s end.  A priest stood to Ridley’s right, chanting scriptures from the Holy Book.  On the house closest to her pyre jutted a chimney stack upon which Artemis was perched.  Her eyes were as big as the moon, full of fear.  Ridley looked away from her, down at her bare feet.

“People of Smith Town!” the Mayor began, his voice booming with the authority he had earned.  “Look, for in front of you is a hand-maiden of the devil himself!  She looks to undo all the good things our God in Heaven has given us!”  The people murmured, agreeing. 

“But I come to you tonight, to tell you that God is stronger, and has shown us this wolf in sheep’s clothing!”  He pointed an accusing finger at Ridley.  Then he stepped up to Magdelina.

“My dear, dear Magdelina…  You have done us all a favor, coming to us.  With your admission you have saved us all from damnation!”  The people stirred again, moved with his praising of the woman.  “May you rest easy knowing your daughter’s soul may be yet saved because of you…”  He patted her and then stood, passing over to a torch bearer.  He patted this man’s shoulder as well as he took the flame form his hand.  He walked up and stood in front of the pyre, peering up at Ridley.

“Look at me child…”  He sneered.  Her eyes, apathetic, turned to him.  “May God have mercy on your soul…”  He threw the torch into the tangle of wood and brush, stepping back as the oil ignited.  The heat lurched up and around her instantly.  She lifted her head up to the moon, trying to escape the blistering heat.

“Stop this, I say!”  The townspeople turned as a collective to regard Althea.  “Douse the flames, Stewart!!  My granddaughter is an innocent!”  She stalked forward, the people backing out of her way as she stormed to the front of the gathering and the pyre.

Magdelina began shrieking, blathering on in terror.  “Look at her!!  Her face!  Ridley has corrupted her!  She bears the devil upon her face!!!”  Magdelina worked a spell that distorted Althea’s features, glamouring her into a devilish creature.  Althea had turned to glare at Magdelina just as a single shot rang out.

Bewildered, Althea looked down at her chest where a smoking hole was visible in her dress.  She looked up to Ridley as her brows came together in shock and pain.  “Do not let her win, my Granddaughter…”  She lifted her hand up to Ridley as she began to fall.  She hit the ground and the people were silent.

“NO!!”  Ridley was beckoned back into reality with the silence.  She struggled against her restraints, new tears spilling down her face.  “Grandmother!!!”  Her desperation reinstated itself with new vigor as she watched Althea falter.

Althea was dead.  Magdelina began to thrash about wildly.  “My FAMILY!  MY FAMILY, WHY MUST THIS HAPPEN TO ME??”    Ridley glared at her, a new emotion rearing its ugly head in her chest.  Hatred.  She searched over the crowd, stopping instantly when her eyes fell on her father.

“Remember who you are…”  He tilted his head at her, a quizzical expression on his face just before he simply vanished in an evaporation of smoke.

Her head dropped back down.  The flames had begun to lick through the slats of the platform, blistering her feet.

“If a witch is what you seek… Then a witch you shall have…”  Her voice took on the bell tones of the fae, magical and music like.  The smooth words caused the priest to cease his chantings and look over at her.  She turned her eyes up to meet his, smiling at him as she did so.

His bible lifted out of his hands and into the air.  The bindings worked themselves backwards and the pages fluttered out and then flew through the crowds as if possessed with the spirits of bats.  Her bindings turned to sand and slid off her hands.  The flames beneath her became water and fell to the ground in a satisfying splash.

The mayor turned to see the spectacle as everyone gasped out, only to find the stake Ridley had been tied to empty.  He turned back to face the crowd and nearly bumped his nose with hers.  Her eyes sparked with the power she had kept at bay for so long, and she plunged her hand into his chest.

“Such a way you have with stirring the hearts of others, Mayor…”  She batted her eyes at him as she plucked his from his rib cage.  He did not fall, but only stared at her with a look of shock.  With her other hand she scribbled runes on his heart that glowed white hot before sinking in.  She held it out for him.

He reached up with trembling hands and took hold of it.  “That is what you crave, is it not?  To hold their hearts… sway them to your will?”  Blank eyes looked up at her as he brought his heart to his mouth.  With her index finger she scribbled more of the runes across his forehead.  Mayor Smith tore into his own heart, pulling apart the tough muscle and swallowing it as though he was ravished with hunger.

She turned from him and looked out over the townspeople.  Everywhere she looked the people would gasp and back away from her gaze.  Around the town square, where they all were gathered, a line of trees began to sprout.  With a sudden ferocity they jutted up into the sky, the growth of their boughs causing the ground to crack and shudder.  Vines and other plants sprung up between them, shutting the people in a ring of impassable vegetation.

Mayor Smith looked up from his now empty hands.  His eyes were glazed over with a white film.  He looked up to Ridley.

“By all means, Mayor…  Have at them.”  He lunged at the man who had given him the torch, biting into the man’s shoulder until he hit the bone.  Screams were shouted as the collective began to disperse.  Ridley turned to her mother who was frozen still in her place.  The women that had coddled her defensively circled around Magdelina.

Ridley blinked at them and they all slumped to the ground.  Her mother looked up at her with a fear-stricken face.  She began to scramble, hobbling away on all fours.  Ridley lifted a hand and roots from beneath the woman spiraled up and caught hold of her.  “No, Ridley… Ridley!  I’m sorry, darling!  Give me another chance!”  Her mother began to spark with lightning, hoping to burn away the roots.

Ridley grabbed her by the hair.  “No more chances, Magdelina.”  Ridley turned, looking at her pyre.  The water sprouted up into a fountain and returned to flame.  With this she had sealed Smith Town’s fate.  Between the gnashing teeth of Stewart and the unchecked flames, the Town would be no more by the time the sun rose.

 

Ridley looked down at her mother with a grimace as more screams erupted.  Before she could hear another, she ported them back to The Manor.

* * *

Ridley waltzed into the sun room, donning her new apparel.  It was a dress fashioned in the likeness of the suit her father had been wearing.  Her true nature had also manifested itself.  Ridley was pristine, beautiful and powerful… everything Magdelina had tried so desperately to keep her from being.

“Father paid me a visit tonight, just before you had the town descend upon me.”  Ridley came and sat on the piano stool, lightly playing a haunting tune.  “He gave me a gift…”  She moved from the piano then and paced over to the middle of the room where Magdelina sat slumped over in a chair.  The piano continued to play its delicate tune.

Ridley reached and gently pushed up on her mother’s chin, bringing her face into view.  The talon marks that Artemis had racked across her face had begun to fester and ooze.  Her mother was a sight to behold knocked off her pedestal.

“Envy…”  Ridley crooned as her eyes flashed their green glow, “such a deadly sin…”  Magdelina sat in silence, though her lip twitched in sheer annoyance.  She opened her mouth to speak, but with a flick of Ridley’s hand one of the festered places in her facial wound pulsed and burst.  Magdelina screamed out in horrific manner.  Ridley chanted a line and the room fell silent even though Magdelina was hardly through with her scream.

“You hate me for everything I am… because it is everything you are not.”  Ridley was done with tears.  She knew what she spoke now was truth, for it was her nature.

“It seems as I have come of age, mother.  I feel as though I have a few new tricks up my sleeve.”  She took a handkerchief and dabbed at her mother’s face a bit.  “My, my, mother…  Wouldn’t you like to see how well you look?”  Magdelina was muttering, chanting spells that had no clearance for her voice could not make them real.  Ridley circled around her and held up the mirror so she could see her face.

At first she wrenched away from the image, seeing her infectious sores.  Then she saw herself change, her features come alive with vitality and the vibrancy of youth.  She leaned closer to the mirror, turning her head from side to side, looking herself over in awe.

“Ah… I see.”  The mirror vanished.  Ridley dragged a chair across the room, the legs scraping ominously against the hardwood.  She sat herself in front of her mother and crossed her legs.

“I am compelled to strike a bargain with you, Mother Dearest…”  She looked into her eyes.  “For I know what it is you desire above all else.”

“Return Malyk to me and I will give you immortality.”  Magdelina’s breathing stopped when the words fell on her ears.  The woman’s lips gaped slightly in wonderment.  Ridley waved her hand and returned to her the use of her voice.

“This is not within your power…”  Magdelina sneered.

“The power of the deal is stronger than you can imagine, mother.”  She shook her head at Magdelina as her lips pressed into a hard line.  “It is this, or death.  Live forever or die this night.”

Magdelina’s breath became sporadic… She was conflicted.  Though she did not believe immortality was within her daughter’s power, she had seen firsthand that death was…

“I accept.”  As soon as she said the words they were standing in Ridley’s room, in front of Malyk.

“The payment will fuel the magick.  Return Malyk and you shall have your immortality.”  Magdelina stared at Ridley with blank eyes.  Slowly she turned her head toward her statued son.  She placed a splayed hand on his chest and closed her eyes.  Cracks in the stone appeared around her fingers,then raced along the surface of the figure.

A groaning sound ensued as Magdelina dropped her hand.  The stone began to fall off of Malyk as if it were cracked eggshells.  Within moments Malyk fell to his knees, made of flesh once more.  He looked up at Ridley.  He became confused, seeing her true nature for the first time.

“My sister….  What has happened?”  He stood, albeit shakily.

“Everything will be made clear in due time, brother.”  She smiled and nodded at him slightly as she took hold of his hand.

“Now, my Darling Daughter.  I have done as you asked of me.  Bestow upon me what is promised.”  Magdelina’s sneer was back in place, her arrogance rearing its head once more.

Ridley let go of Malyk’s hand and offered it up to her mother.  “The bargain is struck.  Take my hand.”

Magdelina greedily reached out and grabbed hold of Ridley’s hand.  Ridley lifted her eyes up to her mother’s.  Magdelina’s power began to recede, pulse out of her and into Ridley’s hand… her veins lit up and drained into the handshake.  She looked down and then back up in bewilderment as she tried hopelessly to let go of her daughter’s hand.

“I give you immortality at the price of your power.  You shall live until the end of this world as a powerless, ugly mundane.”  The last words were spit out with hatred.  “Exactly how you wished me to live…”  When the deed was done she flung her mother’s hand away.  Magdelina followed with the force and fell to the ground in a heap, sobbing and muttering maniacally.

 

“The Manor holds no sanctuary for us anymore, Brother.”  Ridley turned to Malyk and embraced him.  “I believe that it is time we carved out our own path.”  She looked down at her writhing mother one last time before she and Malyk wisped away in tendrils of smoke.

* * *

Present Day:

Ridley took the sunglasses from her face as she walked into the bar.  She was on the outskirts of Savannah Georgia, visiting a backwater bar filled to the brim with mulleted red-necks.  She nuzzled herself into a booth and picked up the menu.

A haggard voice assaulted her ears, “What’ll it be, Blondie?”  Behind the menu Ridley grinned a cheshire’s smile.  She let the menu fall as she leaned forward and sat her chin the palm of her up-turned hand.

“Hi, Maggie.”  Her eyes flashed at the frail, scar-faced woman.  “Long time no see…”


End file.
